Carrie Nation was a famed temperance leader in the United States in the 19th and early 20 century. Accompanied by her hymn-singing women disciples, she would walk into saloon and destroy their fixtures and stocks of alcohol with her hatchet.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Carrie Nation was a famed temperance leader in the United States in...

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A poster from sometime in the early 1930s just prior to the end of Prohibition.

But next month, the town could reject the temperance advocate's legacy. Alcohol and modernity await.

On Feb. 25, Bridgewater voters will decide whether to allow town restaurants to serve beer, wine and hard spirits, ending its status as the only dry town in Connecticut.

If the town votes for the proposal, it would turn back a tradition that dates to 1920, when Prohibition took effect in the United States.

"There are people in town who don't want change," First Selectman Curtis Read said. "There are people who want to have a beer with their hamburger. I know I'd like to have a beer with a hamburger here."

On the other hand, this small corner of the land of steady habits could stay rock steady, and refuse once again to abide the sale of demon rum within its borders.

"I think it will stay," Laszlo Pinter, a town resident and Danbury's Deputy Corporation Counsel, said of the town's dry laws. "I think this town is a fairly conservative place, and it's difficult to change things here."

Plus Pinter said, some people like the cachet of being the last dry town in Connecticut.

"I think that's 20 to 30 percent of it," he said.

But two people would like to change the law for business reasons.

More Information

Alcohol in ConnecticutMid-19th century: Connecticut bans the sale of alcohol, but the law is not enforced,Jan. 17, 1920: The 18th Amendment institutes Prohibition. Connecticut and Rhode Island do not ratify it.Dec. 5, 1933: The 21st Amendment repeals Prohibition. Towns in Connecticut must vote to stay dry, or allow alcohol sales. Bridgewater stays dry.Mid 1940s: An innkeeper in Bridgewater asks to serve alcohol. Pro- and anti-factions erupt. The town stays dry.1993: Wilton allows the sale of alcohol in restaurants; in 2009 they allowed package stores to sell alcohol as well.2005: Eastford allows the sale of alcohol, leaving Bridgewater the last dry town in the state.Feb. 25, 2014: Bridgewater voters will decide if alcohol should be sold in restaurants.

Greg Bollard, May's spokesman, said the plan is to expand the delicatessen into the vacant Union Bank next door, offering evening hours and an expanded menu. But for it to succeed, he said, the store would have to serve alcohol, including the wine produced at May's Maywood farm.

"If we don't have that option, they'll go out of town," he said of potential diners.

Bill Holland wants to open an upscale restaurant on Route 67 in the old Webster Bank, giving townspeople a local option they now drive to Redding, Kent or Danbury to get.

"I'd like them to come here for a pleasant evening, maybe listen to music," he said. "I'd like to have a place where our seniors could come for a nice lunch."

When the town went dry for good in the 1940s, it had little to do with selling liquor.

Buchheit said when Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the towns in the state had to vote on allowing the sale of alcohol or staying dry. Bridgewater stayed dry.

But in the 1940s, she said, when the owners of an inn wanted to sell alcohol, the town split into factions that had more to do with local animosities and small-town politics than the pouring of any bottle of wine.

"It was just one group of people going against another group of people," Buchheit said. "It was about one group of people getting their way."